


Two Men and a Dog

by pikachumaniac



Category: Sherlock (TV), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-11 04:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4422038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikachumaniac/pseuds/pikachumaniac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There were things about Sophie, Q supposed, that could be deemed… adorable. She obviously adored James, and James adored her. Sometimes Q thought he could forgive all her faults when he saw how happy James was, but those moments quickly passed in favor of a frothing rage at whatever fresh new hell the dog he had personally dubbed “the demon dog” wreaked on his life.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>In which James Bond gets a dog and Q dedicates his immense intellect to getting rid of her as quickly as possible, much to the dismay of one John Watson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

      In retrospect, James probably should have consulted Q before he did it. But at the time, horrible as it sounded, his partner was the last thing on his mind. Instead, all he could see was large, hopeful brown eyes and a trusting face, and the thought that he could _finally_ do this because there was somebody else who would help him, somebody else who could help make his dream – a stupid one, he knew, considering what his work entailed and his general (short) life expectancy – come true.

      He never stood a chance, really. That was what he would tell Q.

      Maybe then, Q wouldn’t flay him alive.

* * *

      Q was not pleased. Because he was a mature adult, rather than bludgeon James to death with his laptop and stuff the corpse in a trash compactor, he settled for saying, “ _No_.”

      James responded with goddamn puppy eyes, which were mirrored by the mutt at his side. “Q, she needed a good home.”

      “That does not mean it will be this one,” he growled. “My building does not even allow pets, James. You know that.”

      “It does now.”

      “You…” he sputtered. “You bribed my _landlord_?!”

      “Of course I didn’t bribe him,” James replied defensively. “I just… convinced him that a change would be good.”

      Q hoped desperately that this _did_ mean bribery, rather than threats of physical violence that would either lead to a hair-raising rent increase or them having to hunt for a new flat. “Well, either way, you were wasting your time,” he snapped. “We can’t have a dog. We work around the clock and besides, who do you expect to take care of her when you’re on-mission? Or were you planning on hiding her in your luggage?”

      James shuffled his feet, looking ridiculously like a child who had not thought things through. Then again, that was _exactly_ what he was. “I’m sorry, Q. You’re right. It’s just that… when I was young, we always had dogs, and they became like family to me after my parents died. I’ve always wanted another dog but never had the opportunity, what with my lifestyle and the demands of the job, so when I saw her I just… I thought with you helping me, maybe I could finally get back some of my childhood again.”

      Q quickly reevaluated his prior assessment; James was not a child, but a terrible human being who was terribly good at guilt-tripping other people into making terrible, _terrible_ decisions. He _knew_ it, having seen it many times before. And yet it was James, looking so emotionally vulnerable and goddamnit, there were those puppy eyes again. Q couldn’t resist even though he knew that his partner was just being a manipulative bastard, but James was a double-o agent for a reason.

      He threw up his hands. “Fine. _Fine._ Now stop making that face or you’ll wake up without eyeballs tomorrow.”

      James immediately flung his arms around Q, and Q had to fight not to melt into the bastard’s embrace, especially when he murmured with obvious sincerity, “Thank you, Q.”

      “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” he asked with no little despair, and looked over his partner’s shoulder just in time to see the dog chewing through his computer cables. “ ** _James_** _!!_ ”

* * *

      Things only went downhill from there.

      There were things about Sophie, Q supposed, that could be deemed… adorable. She obviously adored James, and James adored her. Sometimes Q thought he could forgive all her faults when he saw how happy James was, but those moments quickly passed in favor of a frothing rage at whatever fresh new hell the dog he had personally dubbed ‘the demon dog’ wreaked on his life.

      The computer cables were just the start of it. Q didn’t know if James had trained her to hate his clothing, but Sophie quickly began to wage war on his wardrobe. What little clothing was not chewed through or slobbered on ended up covered in a fine layer of her fur – which she shed in cheerful abundance. James had no sympathy for his plight, instead using Sophie’s destruction of his favorite cardigans as an excuse to buy him absurdly expensive clothing that made him want to break out in hives every time he had to pick up a mug of tea.

      Then there was the fact that the demon dog followed James _everywhere_. It was starting to feel like James had grown a tail, considering how no matter where he went to the flat, there she was, tagging along happily. James thought it was sweet, but he wasn’t the one who had to listen to her sit outside the bathroom door, whimpering because James would not allow her to come in and watch him shower. Q had tried throwing her a ball once in a misguided attempt to distract her, but she had just given him an injured look before flopping down on the floor and whining even more loudly.

      Such behavior, among other things, quickly convinced Q that they needed to train her. He had no hope of teaching her anything complicated, since James had no self-control when it came to spoiling her, but he assumed that he could at least teach her how to _sit_. Unfortunately, when James caught him shoving her rump down to the floor when she refused to obey his command, his partner had the gall to demand, “Why are you being so cruel to her?”

      Q straightened to glare at James, only to watch as Sophie immediately stood up. “It’s called _discipline_ , James. Not that you would know anything about that.”

      “That doesn’t mean you have to be so cruel.”

      “I’m just trying to teach her how to sit!” Q yelled, flabbergasted that they even had to have this conversation. Immediately the dog started to make that whimpering sound, and would not stop until James went to pick her up and bury his head in her side, promising that he would never let the “bad man” torture her again. Q wondered dispassionately if M would be displeased if he shanked the agent right at that very moment.

      Q honestly did not know if it was better or worse when James was on-mission. On one hand, he didn’t have to listen to the positively sickening litany of compliments that James would rain down on the dog for simply _existing_ while Q fumed in the corner. On the other hand, Sophie refused to _eat_ when James wasn’t there, which usually led to Q having to spend two and a half hours every evening begging, cursing, threatening, and cajoling, before finally just giving up and handing her a treat so that 007 wouldn’t hunt him down for animal abuse.

      “She wouldn’t eat,” he complained for the thousandth time as the demon dog slobbered kisses all over James upon his return from a two-week mission.

      “You were probably preparing her food wrong. Isn’t that right, you clever, clever thing?” The latter statement was _not_ directed at Q.

      “I build dangerous weapons to exact specifications. You don’t think I can prepare dog food?” he snarled. “Your dog is just a goddamn brat.”

      “Don’t listen to him,” James cooed. Q thought that was completely unnecessary; Sophie never listened to him in the first place.

      The final straw was when they were in bed, doing something very pleasant that became unpleasant very, _very_ quickly when a low, constant whimper started echoing through the door to their bedroom.

      James immediately started to pull away, forcing Q to grab his neck and yank him down, snarling, “Don’t. Even. Think. About. It.”

      “But she could be hurt-”

      “Do I look like I care right now, 007?!”

      The whimper transitioned into a high-pitched whine, and before Q could process what was happening, James was flinging himself off the bed and running to Sophie’s aid, leaving Q with a raging erection and murder in his heart.

* * *

      Two days later, James came home early to get ready for his next mission abroad, only to find Q packing.

      “Conference,” Q muttered quickly before James could get the wrong idea and go on an angst-ridden drinking spree. “One week, in New York.”

      Q waited for James to remind him that he couldn’t go, as James had refused to let him go to these events without serving as his personal bodyguard ever since the truly horrific Vienna conference when he had been kidnapped and creatively tortured for two weeks (to add insult to injury, he was kidnapped right before the start of the only interesting panel in that absolutely mind-numbing conference). Q was also willing to settle for James apologizing, lavishing attention on him, or just tackling and tying him to a chair until he missed his flight.

      He waited, and he knew he waited in vain, but that did not stop him from wanting to cause permanent brain damage to his partner when James asked, “But what about Sophie?”

      Luckily, he was ready for that. “Doctor Watson has kindly offered to take care of her while we are away.”

      Well, not so much as offered as had been _forced_ , but that was an unimportant detail that had no place in this conversation.

      “What?!” Q tried not to take too much pleasure at James’s terror as the agent continued, “Your brother will kill her and be experimenting on her corpse before the first twenty-four hours are up.”

      “Are you implying that you don’t trust John to look out for her?” Q asked, taking care to school his expression into something vaguely resembling innocence. “Your good friend, John Watson?”

      James recognized the trap, and quickly veered in a different direction. “You weren’t scheduled for this conference two days ago,” he accused. “In fact, I clearly remember you declining to go.”

      “Something… interesting came up,” Q explained, putting in no effort to make the lie convincing. He wasn’t the super-agent of the relationship anyway.

      “You’re so scared of flying that you refuse to get on a plane for the sake of national security, but you’re willing to do so just to get our dog killed?”

      Q had two counterpoints to this: first, his sanity was far more important than _national security_ (the latter of which would not exist without his considerable intellect), and second, Sophie wasn’t _his_ dog in the first place.

      Although Q voiced neither of these facts, James must have sensed that he lacked a convincing argument, as he settled for whining, “Your brother is going to kill her!”

      “That’s not my problem,” he replied, just managing to not cheerfully admit that that was precisely the point.

* * *

      “John? What is this?”

      John Watson sighed resignedly, lowering the paper just enough to make sure that Sherlock was referring to the dog, rather than making a roundabout request for medical attention (he could only wish that it was possible to forget the time Sherlock had held up a hand that had an honest-to-god ninja throwing star embedded in it, and asked innocently, _“What is this?”_ ). Once he had ascertained that his flatmate was indeed staring at the dog, and therefore presumably talking about it, he put the paper back up, wishing the whole situation would just go away. “Your brother dropped her off an hour ago. It seems both he and Bond had to leave the country, so I’ll be looking after her for the next week.”

      Obviously he should have said no, but that assumed he had a choice in the matter. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that the youngest Holmes brother could be a right pain in the arse when he wanted to be, and a more effective one too. While Sherlock shooting bullet holes into the wall and Mycroft threatening world destruction (or worse, world _domination_ ) could be annoying, Carrington Holmes’s electronic terrorism was downright horrifying. John still shuddered at the memory of his computer playing One Direction at max volume for thirty-six hours straight, and had no interest in a repeat performance.

      “My brother?” Sherlock said in a way that rather suggested he had deleted the fact that he had a brother in the first place. “He has a dog?”

      “Apparently,” John muttered, trying not to think about the way Sherlock was now looking at the dog like all his birthdays had come at once. He really was not looking forward to the conversation in which he had to explain to Bond why his dog had been poisoned, which would probably lead to him dodging sniper shots for the rest of his life.

      However, things took an unexpected turn when Sherlock suddenly yelled, “John! The dog is gnawing on my head!”

      That was… unexpected. John quickly put the paper down again, only to find that Sherlock’s head was completely dog-free, although she was at the moment chewing on something wrapped in a plastic bag. John had innocently thought it was the shopping, but then he remembered that the detective’s idea of shopping usually involved kidnapping (John’s, specifically) and bargaining with consulting criminals (Sherlock, definitely all Sherlock).

      For the oddest reason, this memory made John a little less sympathetic, so he went back to reading his paper as he replied simply, “You should have thought of that before you put it down.”

      As Sherlock ranted and raved about how hard it would be to convince Molly to give him another head, John decided that maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad week after all.


	2. Chapter 2

      “Carrington.”

      “Sherlock.”

      Q might not have been as ridiculously observant as his older brothers, but he knew that if Sherlock was taking the time to call rather than send a text, it was A Very Serious Matter indeed. However, because Q also knew his brother and his warped sense of what constituted A Very Serious Matter, he was completely unsurprised when Sherlock demanded, “Why is your dog still in my flat?”

_Because your flatmate likes the fact that the dog torments you just as much as she tormented me_ , Q thought, but instead said in a completely disinterested tone, “She’s not my dog, and I have no idea.”

      Sherlock ignored his blatant lie (Q had never been a very good liar, as growing up with two brothers who could see through his attempts – and had no problems tattling on him – had eventually caused him to shrug his shoulders in a ‘what’s-the-point?’ sort of way), and said in a way that came very close to what was commonly known as _whining_ , “It’s shedding over all my experiments. It mauled my evidence. It won't stop making noises. John is _always_ paying attention to it.”

      “Not my problem,” Q replied breezily, struggling not to smirk at the thought that Sherlock was probably most distraught over the fact that the great detective had now been replaced by a long-haired mutt in John Watson’s esteem. He didn’t fight too hard though, which was probably why various Q-branch members were backing away from his psychotic grin as he added as an afterthought, “The demon dog is a she, by the way. Not an it.”

      He really shouldn’t have bothered; Sherlock immediately jumped on that throwaway line to accuse, “If you care so much about using proper pronouns about _it_ , then you should come here immediately to take _it_ away.”

      “Please do not confuse a preference for proper grammar with caring. I know you are not overly familiar with the latter, but there is a difference between the two.”

      “I demand you take _it_ away from my flat this instant!” Sherlock roared, having reverted to the time-honored tradition of simply demanding what he wanted.

      Unfortunately for Sherlock, Q was no longer a child who willingly obeyed his brother’s every capricious demand. Besides, Q found himself distracted by other matters, as at that precise moment, an alarm went off in Q-branch. It might have been a terrorist attack, it might have been an explosion in the lab, or it might have been a new hire forgetting about all the security measures and accidentally causing the steel cage to drop from the ceiling. Q didn’t know and, more to the point, he didn’t particularly care because it was an excuse to get off the phone.

      “Oh dear, look at that,” he drawled. “National security calls again. I’m sorry, Sherlock, but you’ll have to take this up with James if you want it dealt with. I just don’t have the time.”

      “You just don’t want _it_ back,” Sherlock accused.

      “That too,” he admitted quite happily. “You’ve seen why. She’s a demon.”

      “Carrington Holmes, if you don’t come here at once to take away your-”

      Q hung up, whistling merrily to himself.

~ * ~

      Under normal circumstances, a situation in which someone did not want to give James Bond back something that mattered very much to him would not have lasted very long. James was a determined sort of fellow, and whether that ‘something’ was state secrets or a certain quartermaster with a penchant for getting kidnapped (usually on Tuesdays, for some inexplicable reason), sooner rather than later, James would get that something back.

      Normal circumstances, however, did not involve John Watson, who was proving most reluctant to return the dog that he originally had not even wanted to take care of. For reasons Q could not be bothered to figure out, John had been completely seduced by the dog, and had not only kept Sherlock from turning her into a science experiment, but had miraculously prevented James from getting her _back_.

      Q had no idea why anyone, let alone someone as sensible as John, would fight so hard to keep a fluffy monstrosity like Sophie in the first place, but he wasn’t about to complain. He had always suspected that there was more to the former army doctor than met the eye, as otherwise Sherlock would not have been able to put up with him for more than three seconds, but even he was impressed by how long John had been able to keep James away from the dog. (He did make a mental note to suggest filling the recently vacated 005 position with one John Watson, until he realized that this would give James the opportunity to steal back Sophie. He then proceeded to put a travel block on John, ensuring that the good doctor would never be able to leave the country - and more importantly,  _Sophie_ \- again.)

      By contrast, James knew exactly why Sophie was worth fighting for, and quickly resorted to great – and increasingly _illegal_ – lengths to get his damn mutt back. John in turn was able to repel his attacks with brutal efficiency, even when said attacks involved rappelling down Mrs. Hudson’s building. Q still wasn’t sure his hearing would ever recover from the combined force of M’s and the landlady-not-a-housekeeper’s lecturing after James nearly ended up as a fleshy splatter on the pavement after John cut the rope. But even that was worth the blissfully Sophie-free weeks, where he could enjoy his clothes unchewed and his nights unpunctuated by scratching on his bedroom door. Admittedly, he hadn’t got laid since Sophie’s kidnapping, but he was willing to make that sacrifice if it meant a whimper-free existence (besides, he knew James would break eventually).

      As it was in Q’s interest to have Sophie remain with John, it was therefore of no surprise that when 007 attempted to use his ill-gained tech to gently persuade (i.e., threaten) John into giving back the dog, all of said tech mysteriously malfunctioned. Q swore up and down that he had no part in that, and the fact that he could do so with a straight face while holding a screwdriver in one hand and James’s now mysteriously broken Walther in the other spoke volumes about his determination to never have that damn dog step foot in his flat again.

      Not that James noticed. He just wanted Sophie back, at any cost.

~ * ~

      Things came to a head when James finally forced his way into the flat through the simple yet effective expedient of using the front door, hampered only by a floppy-haired quartermaster clinging to his legs and yowling that the damn dog was not worth a murder conviction. John was ready for him though, and it did not take long for the situation to devolve to the point where James and John were ready to bear wrestle each other for custody of a _dog_ , Q was prepared to shoot said dog, and Sherlock had already opened a window to heave the dog out of.

      Which was precisely when Mycroft Holmes chose to stride into the flat.

      Having grown up with two delightfully precocious brothers lacking even the tiniest modicum of common sense, Mycroft simply reacted with a soft “hrm.” Having grown up with an older brother who could (and once did) send them to Siberia for the heinous crime of breathing too loudly, Sherlock and Q immediately froze, their survival instincts quickly copied by everyone else.

      Everyone, that was, except Sophie, who trotted over to the interloper without a care in the world, before promptly burying her face in his crotch.

      The room was silent as a grave, every person except Mycroft and the cheerfully oblivious Sophie holding their breath, waiting for something terrible to happen.

      Mycroft looked down at the dog before he gingerly pushed her away with his umbrella. She whined and tried to get close again, only for Mycroft to order:

      “ **Sit**.”

      Sophie, in horror of this far greater force, immediately slammed her rump down onto the ground, eliciting four set of staring eyeballs.

      “How did you do that?” Q whispered in awe, but fell silent when Mycroft rewarded with him a level stare, silently scolding him for asking such a stupid question _when he already knew the answer to it_.

      “This dog,” Mycroft said slowly, making sure to give each of the others a long look of their own until they all wanted to cower in shame as well, “lacks discipline. To that end, _I_ will be taking custody of her until she has learned to behave, and after _you_ have proven yourselves capable of taking care of her in an orderly fashion.”

      The reactions were immediate and decidedly predictable.

      “Why are you being so cruel?”

      “She’s perfect the way she is.”

      “I never wanted her in the first place.”

      “If they let me experiment on her, it wouldn’t have come to this.”

      “ _Enough_ ,” Mycroft barked, and they all fell silent again. “This is not up for discussion. _Come._ ”

      The latter order was directed at Sophie, who let out a soft whimper but immediately got up and trailed after Mycroft, leaving both despair and delight in her wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And because this story would not be complete without a picture of the demon dog who Sophie is based on....
> 
> [](http://imgur.com/g17pcwp)

**Author's Note:**

> For more ficlets, deleted scenes, and babbling about writing (or lack thereof), I can be found at http://pikachumaniac.tumblr.com/.


End file.
